


what we do for others

by perhapssoon



Category: Lego Ninjago
Genre: Cryptor is done with life, F/M, Zane is pining, actually pixane is pining idiots, jay can’t believe anything, overlord is a jerk, picking up slack
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-25
Updated: 2018-08-25
Packaged: 2019-07-02 04:32:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15789024
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/perhapssoon/pseuds/perhapssoon
Summary: Zane meets a girl he has never seen before and his pining for her takes away from everyone else until he’s in a hole he may not be able to get out of this time.





	what we do for others

**Author's Note:**

> This started out as a weird high school/coffee shop AU which turned into a mess of emotions, angst, and obscurity. I’m not kidding you on the obscurity part. Many details and/or memories (some important ones) are left out because Zane, in all his pining glory and Pixal-centric days has ignored most of life and focused on the ‘important’ parts in his mind (which is more realistic than omnipresence?). So maybe it’ll make sense in the end. Everyone is human in this AU. This is kinda a vent, kinda not, so pls bear with me.

Each day is the same.  Wake up, go to school, arrive at the last second because of Octavius and his gang trying to slash his tires or graffiti his car, leave school, and work for a three hour shift at the coffee shop downtown with his friends.

Why the coffee shop was open afterschool, Zane Julien would never know.  But the important part, was he got paid. That, and his friends were there. 

And that girl that appeared only five months into his senior year. 

\--

"Heyy, Zane!" Jay Walker yells across the room as Zane enters through the back door, hastily tying his apron on. "How's it going?"

One thing that Zane wished was that he and the rest of his friends all attended the same school. "Terrible," he answers honestly.  "Octavius and his gang are back at it again."

"Again?" Nya Smith asks, sharing an exasperated look with Kai, her brother. "What'd they do this time?"

"Is it worse than last week?" Lloyd Garmadon asks at the same time.

"Really?" Jay turns to Lloyd before looking back at Zane. "How can spray-painting curse words on the side doors of a car get any worse?"

"They broke three windows and cracked the windshield," Zane sighs. "Cryptor was ready to kill them with one of those broken bike rack poles but--"

"You should've let him," Cole Brookstone jumps in.  "And then you can video record and send it to me so it can make my day."

"I can't let him kill them," Zane replies, sticking a receipt on the overhead rack. "I'll be a witness if he gets caught in the act of murder."

[[MORE]]

"Okay, but c'mon," Kai groans. "You can't just let them total your car every week.  You _just_ saved enough money to fix the damage last week and now--"

"It'll be a while, but it's fine," Zane says firmly. "I don't want any of you to get in trouble."

"You could always sic Cryptor on them," Kai mutters, as he goes to the register to take a customer's order. "He can tear them to pieces."

"My brother is _not_ a dog," Zane replies, but he's grinning.

"Hey, what happened to your other brother, anyway?" Nya asks. She picks up a coffee cup to yell the owner's name before turning back to the conversation. "Still in school?"

"Yeah, he moved to a boarding school a few weeks away because our school is getting on his nerves."

"Well, I can see why."

The shop's door suddenly jingles as a new customer walks in and when Zane looks up, he's immediately struck with something he's never experienced before.

He can vaguely hear someone, maybe Jay, say behind him: "Woah, Zane's in love. You guys mind handling her order?"

"No problem." Lloyd moves in front of his vision before Jay slaps him across the face.

"Zane! You good there?"

"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine." Zane shakes his head to clear it and realizes he's suddenly in the back room. "What happened?"

"You totally fell in love with that purple chick at first sight," Jay says with a grin. "Total googly eyes and everything."

"She didn't notice me, did she?" Zane asks.  He wonders for a split second if he really does like her, or if it's a spur of the moment thing but the look on Jay's face tells him it's definitely a crush.

Jay winces. "Yeah. She did. But she, uh how do I say this, kinda didn't care? Maybe she'll warm up to you if you get to know her..."

"Well it is a first time thing, you know," Nya says, walking into the room.  "To be honest, she kinda looked a bit confused, but maybe it's her fight or flight reaction.  Or her 'stranger danger' stuff."

"Doesn't matter," Jay says dismissively.  "Go talk to her, Zane."

"What? No way!" Zane shakes his head. "I can't do that."

"Fine. Then call her name for her order.  You can do that at least without falling too hard, can you?"

Zane hesitates.  This is his chance to learn her name without awkwardly sidling up to her. And maybe he can admire her from afar in case anything happens.

"...Fine."

"Yes!" Nya seems too happy for someone on a three hour shift, and practically shoves Zane out the door.  It's almost like she _wants_ them to get together.  But he doesn't have any time to dwell on that, because he's suddenly out in the open and Cole is shoving the coffee cup into his hands.

"Her name is Pixal Borg," he says and then retreats to the back.

Zane stands there, heart pounding, hand threatening to crush the cup and spill the steaming hot liquid all over the tiles. He stays in a stupor for a moment before Kai claps him on the back. 

“Get it together, Zane. You’re not asking her out. Yet.”

Zane blinks once and glances back down at the cup. It seems like the hardest thing he’s ever done in that moment, but he manages to put the cup on the counter and say her name loud enough with minimal voice cracks. 

“One cappuccino for Pixal Borg?"

The woman sitting at one of the empty tables stands and walks over to the counter.  To Zane, it seems like she's walking on air. When she arrives merely two feet in front of his face, he manages to notice her bright emerald green eyes before they drop to his nametag.

"That's me."

He hands the coffee over almost in a daze, and she takes with with a faint smile. 

"Thanks Zane," she says and leaves the shop, the bell hanging over the door jingling as it shuts. He's barely aware of Cole coming over to him and waving a hand in his face before declaring, "Oh, he's got it _bad_."

\--

"You're serious." Cryptor's voice is flat, his eyes clearly showing that he's unimpressed.  "Who was she?"

"Pixal, I think," Zane says, adding the 'I think' to sound less interested. He knows her name like the back of his hand now.  Cryptor blinks.

"Pixal? As in Pixal Borg? You kidding me?"

"Why? Do you know her?" The words come out a bit faster and harsher than expected and Zane swallows back the torrent of questions he wants to ask. "How?"

Cryptor stares at him. "You don't remember that shit project I had to do in Computer Science? I did it with her and Octavius, remember?"

If he had to be honest, he didn't remember what Cryptor was talking about. "Uh, yes?"

Cryptor looks slightly hurt for a moment before he rolls his eyes and tosses the book he was reading onto the edge of the table. "Really. You've _never_ seen her before."

"No?"

"She goes to our school, idiot! She's in your grade!"

"What?"

Cryptor groans. "Get the damn yearbook."

It takes Zane about three minutes to remember where he stuffed it over the summer and five minutes to drag it downstairs. The whole thing is covered in dust and when he drops it onto the table, a cloud literally rises off the cover before settling into the ground.

"Turn to the junior year."

Zane does as he's told and automatically looks for last name 'Borg' and sure enough, Pixal's face is staring up at him, mouth held in a half-smile.

"Told you." There's something close to smugness and what strangely sounds like panic in Cryptor's voice, but Zane's too busy staring at the yearbook. "You done oogling her yet?"

Zane flushes and closes the yearbook gently. "Yes."

"Okay, cool." Cryptor tosses an envelope at him.  "Your grades came. I was a good person and didn't open it for you.  You're welcome."

Zane takes the envelope and slits it open. He knows he received a 4.0, with the exception of Calculus, which was a 4.5. “You get yours too?”

A strange look crosses over Cryptor’s face and he replies in a tone that makes Zane slightly suspicious. “Yeah.”

“Okay.” Zane puts the letter on the counter and turns to carry the yearbook back upstairs. “I’m going to put this away and then I’m going to work on homework.”

He leaves the room, missing Cryptor’s glance at the abandoned letter. 

\--

Zane always gets straight A’s. It is a reputation he has built on hard work and natural talent. His name is very well known around school, as many teachers want him or wish they had him in their class. 

He’s a senior, ready to graduate this summer. 

So if Cryptor can’t get a name for himself other than Zane’s brother, what is he going to do?

“I got straight A’s,” Pixal says nonchalantly as they hang out in the hallways before school. “You get your grades yet?”

Cryptor stays silent and it’s enough for Pixal to look up from her phone. “Cryptor?”

“Yeah,” is all he says and that’s it.

\--

Pixal mentions her short excursions to the coffee shop about a week later. “I keep running into your brother there. He works the afternoon shift, right?”

Cryptor nods. “Why?”

“He’s cute.”

“Okay, but how bad is your crush level?”

Pixal holds a straight face for two more seconds before she replies, breaking into a rare grin. “Really really bad.”

“So you’re pining.” He manages to keep the emotion out of his voice but inside, he’s laughing and screaming at the same time. 

Pixal flushes. “No.”

They both know she’s lying. 

\--

He should tell her that her feeling are reciprocated. Or maybe tell Zane the same thing. 

But he doesn’t. 

He doesn’t know why.

\--

They start conversations, much to his friends' surprise.  Zane's getting better at socializing and Jay takes every chance he gets to poke fun at him for it.

"You ask her out yet?" he asks.  "Or are you already dating?"

"We're just friends," Zane tries to protest and Kai shakes his head, grinning obnoxiously. 

"Uh, no. You two look at each other like you'd want nothing better than to start kissing right then and there."

Nya whacks her brother on the arm and he retreats to the back room, snickering. "Just take it as slow as you want, Zane,” she reassures him. “No rush.”

—

Pixal certainly seems like a friend at the moment. She apparently has been friends with Cryptor since his freshman year, but Zane, for some reason, has never heard of her before. “Did you ever date?”

She gives him a strange look. “No. Why would I? He’s more of a friend anyway. Not that much emotional connection.”

“I see.” Zane internally cringes. Why did he even ask that question?

She sips her coffee and checks her watch before standing. “It’s nearly seven. I’d better get going. You heard about that test all Calculus students have to take, right?”

“Yeah.” Zane stands as well. “I need to get going as well. It was nice talking to you.”

He can almost hear his friends facepalming in the background. 

—

He doesn’t even have her number yet. 

And it's been three weeks.

And it's also been three weeks since Octavius last confronted him about anything but he tries to ignore the nasty feeling in his gut.

He's more worried about Pixal.  That, and why Cryptor has been avoiding him as well lately.

—

She wonders briefly if she should ask how to contact him more often but she decides against it. It’s better to not let anything show for now since he doesn’t seem to be returning the feelings. 

She spends three hours staring at herself in the mirror, trying to imagine him alongside her. 

—

Octavius apparently stopped by a few afternoons later to try and toilet paper the house (Zane doesn't believe it for a second because they would smash the windows first and Octavius has been acting shady the past few weeks) but Cryptor retaliated by using wire and lashing them to the large trees in their front yard. Which meant that Zane came home to a group of five people, plus Octavius, struggling to get out. He frees them and once he makes sure they’ve all left, goes inside. 

“Cryptor, why did you tie them up with wire?”

“What else was I supposed to do?” His brother’s desk is somewhat messy today, which is unusual on its own, but Cryptor actually looks distracted, like he hasn’t gotten anything done since then. 

“Drive them off, but don’t tie them to the tree,” Zane replies. 

Cryptor ignores his response and demands, “Where were you?”

“What do you mean?”

“You were gone for five hours, two hours longer than your shift. Pixal wasn’t answering my texts either.” Cryptor’s gotten so good at hiding his feelings, that Zane doesn’t know how to respond. 

“We were talking. I guess we lost track of time,” Zane admits and Cryptor’s expression doesn’t change, though he does look away. 

Zane takes it that Cryptor doesn’t care, but he’s too focused on what Cryptor said to really concentrate on that. 

“You have her number?” 

Cryptor snorts. “You really don’t listen. I told you that already.”

When Zane opens his mouth to speak, Cryptor hands over a slip of paper with a number on it. “You should text her first. She’s not one to really initiate conversations unless she really really likes you. Which she probably does."

Zane stares at the paper.  He suddenly is filled with a sense of shyness and he would shove the paper back at Cryptor if not for his brother's look of exasperation.

"You know she likes you, right?"

"What?"

This is unexpected.

"She likes you." Cryptor swivels in his chair to face his older brother, with an air of wanting to get over it quickly.  "Like, _really_ likes you."

"And you're sure of this?"

Cryptor rolls his eyes and swivels away. "Okay, you know what? I'm not gonna help you then."

He shoves Zane towards the door and Zane almost allows himself to leave without an resistance before a piece of paper sitting in the wastebasket catches his eye for some reason.  He grabs it as the door slams shut behind him.

\--

His grades are dropping.  Cryptor honestly is tired of keeping this up: the game he always plays to try to get even with Zane, even though his talent is nowhere near his brother's.  Not even Echo's either, who's at the boarding school their father founded a long time ago.

He goes to the coffee shop where Zane works for no reason (at least that's what he tells himself) and finds his brother has finally gotten up the courage to take Pixal somewhere other than for coffee. Jay doesn’t seem happy for covering his friend’s shift, but his eyes light up when he sees Cryptor. 

“Hey, you’re Zane’s brother, right?”

Zane’s brother. One of the many names Cryptor has received but it is the most painful one. 

He forces himself to grin, though he probably looks creepy. “Yeah. You’re Jay?”

Jay looks downright excited that Cryptor knows his name. “Yep! Zane must’ve mentioned me.”

He seems extremely proud of the fact and Cryptor isn’t sure why. “I guess. He told me of that time you accidentally ran into the wall while carrying a shipment of beans and spilled it all over the floor.”

The smile on Jay’s face faded slightly but he says, still lightheartedly, “Okay, that was an accident.”

Nya comes out of the back room to see what the commotion is about and when she sees Cryptor, she gives him a smile. "How's school going for you?"

"Okay," he lies.

"Cool." she claps her hands together, making a sound that makes Jay flinch away from her dramatically. "What's up?"

"Nothing, I was just wondering where Zane is."

"With Pixal," Kai says, coming out of the back room as well, wiping his hands on his apron. "He finally got up the courage to ask her out.  In a totally platonic way, of course."

The irritation in his voice is obvious, and Cryptor can relate a little too much.  "Do you have an idea where he is?"

Kai shrugs. "Yeah.  He headed downtown. Not sure where."

"Okay, thank you." The words come through gritted teeth and as he leaves, Nya calls after him.

"You sure you'll be able to find him?"

"I'll manage."

\--

The paper in Cryptor's room turns out to be a list of phone numbers.  Zane isn't really sure what they are for, but he has a really bad feeling about it.

He has taken Pixal to just wander around downtown, since neither of them really want to do anything in particular.

"How has school been?" she asks. "Any weird things going on?"

As high school certainly is a strange place, Zane surprisingly doesn't have anything to say to that. 

Actually, he does.

"You know Octavius?"

She nods, face full of concern.  "Yes, I've heard you're his target quite a bit."

"He hasn't done anything to me for at least a month."

She frowns.  "He's probably thinking of something.  You need to stay on guard." She pauses for a second and then continues, "Cryptor's been avoiding me. I try to talk to him and he just ignores me.  It's like we were never friends."

"Did you two have a fight?"

She shakes her head.  "Nothing I know of."

Their conversation is interrupted by the sound of a loud car radio.  It's one that Zane has heard in at least a month.

"Octavius."

The senior in question steps out of his car, grinning widely.  "There you are, Julien. Fancy meeting you here." He turns to Pixal and smirks. "And you have a new girlfriend.  How exciting."

Zane just happens to notice Pixal doesn't correct him.

"How did you find me, Octavius? You haven't done anything in a while."

Octavius' grin, if possible, grows wider.  "That's because I was making an argument to persuade someone to join me."

He pauses, as if for emphasis, but Zane isn't willing to wait around.  "Who?"

"Your brother, Zane, isn't it obvious?" Octavius steps aside and Cryptor is there, expression set in an emotionless mask. "A little family reunion; isn't that sweet?"

Zane doesn't hear him.  He's too busy staring at Cryptor. "Why would you do this?" The words are directed at his younger brother, but the latter does nothing but stare at him.

"Why do you think?"

It doesn't make sense, but slowly the pieces start to click together in Zane's mind.  The countless times he's left Cryptor on his own while he was with Pixal. The extreme reluctance on Cryptor's part and his slip in not mentioning he had Pixal's number, yet covering up for it later. The 'toilet paper' incident. The sudden distance of his brother.  His change of subject when it came to grades. The phone numbers. The sudden appearance of his longtime enemy. Pixal. Cryptor. Octavius.

Cryptor seems to see the sudden realization in Zane's eyes and his own eyes narrow slightly. "I thought you were smart; you would figure it out quickly.  I guess I was wrong."

"You don't need to do this," Zane says as calmly as he can. "You are not like him."

Cryptor's gaze drops slightly and Zane feels a small spark of hope before the former straightens and grins. Zane recognizes that expression well. It's sadness, anger, and desperation rolled into one.

"No. I'm not."

He pauses.

"I'm worse." 

**Author's Note:**

> Special thanks to parachutingkitten on Tumblr for coming up with the Overlord’s human name: Octavius V. Lord.


End file.
